The 2500k is a beautiful chip. I received mine just a few weeks ago and am very impressed with its performance and ease to overclock. The performance compared to my old i7 960 in gaming is mind blowing.
Although AMD is catching up I still think they are lagging behind quite a bit when it comes to pricing. Their best chip to date is only comparable with intels mid-range 2500k/3570k which perform better, has more features and cost about the same. If the 8350 was priced around $169 it'd easily be the best chip for the money but at $199 it makes no sense. Sure it goes on sale from time to time but the regular price needs to come down. Not only that but the mobo you need to take full advantage of a 8350 can cost a pretty penny compared to the board you would need to run the above mentioned intels near their full potential.
I spent a great deal of time recently making up potential systems to purchase from NCIX and each time I always came out with the Intel setup costing less than the AMD in the end. I have nothing against AMD, I had actually wanted to go that route for my new setup but it just didn't make sense to do so at this time. AMD has always been good to me. The majority of my systems over time have been AMD based. I'd like to see what AMD has to offer us in 2013 though. They just may come out with something that will surprise us.

You can buy an M5A97 usually for about $90-$100...that's certainly not expensive.